Bridge Tableaux

The bridge represents the triumph of humanity over the forces of nature – a truce between gravity and commerce, negotiated by engineers and enforced with countless tons of beams and trusses. From afar, the bridge appears static, frozen in monumental grandeur from construction to eternity.

But make no mistake, the bridge lives – expanding, contracting, heaving, and swaying in response to shifting loads, winds, and temperature. It is an animate creature, incapable of complete quietude. To me, a bridge scene evokes the classical tableau vivant, its cast of suspended human actors, chests slowly undulating with breath, replaced by taut cables and angular steel.